Dragonborn Rogues and Elven Warlocks

I was reading this thread at EN World, and there was some mention of “flavor/optimization mismatch”. In particular, they were talking about how the deva was optimally suited for orb wizard, which didn’t match the flavor of the race at all.

I also thought about this some when I was creating my new witch doctor character. I was trying to find an optimal race for a Mask of the Elements doc. Unfortunately, a few of the obvious choices were verboten for campaign purposes: dwarf, half-elf, and human. Fortunately, I stumbled across the gnome possibliity, which I was pretty stoked about, but I would have really been at a loss if I hadn’t.

So I did some more thinking … which is usually when I get into trouble.

This whole phenomenon seems to me to be an issue, not of mechanics, but of mindset–a holdover from 3e. You will recall that, in 3e, not all abilities were created equal. The physical stats were supreme, of course. Wisdom, modestly iimportant due to its impact on the Will save. Intelligence and Charisma were third-class citizens. Consequently, you could not simply swap out one ability score for another; the varying importance of them was used as a balancing factor. Nowhere was this more true than with the character races. This mechanical impact is compounded by the presence of aiblity score penalties. Half-orces received a +2 bonus to Strength and a -2 penalty to Intelligence and Charisma.

Enter Fourth Edition, which has an entirely different design paradigm. Every ability score is designed to be of relatively equal importance. (See, for example, how defenses are calculated; sub-optimal defenses issues–such as classes that require two abilities that impact the same defense–are handled through class features.) One race is not stronger or better than another simply on the force of which ability scores it grants a bonus to. Consequently, there is no mechanical impact to swapping one ability bonus for another. I do recognize that thematically this steps on the toes of the human. That consideration might not be trivial depending on your particular game and campaign.

Proposition: You can freely swap a character race’s ability score bonsues for any two abilities without damaging mechanical balance. Discuss.

N.B. – This discussion is particularly interesting and relevant in light of Hard-Boiled Cultures. HBC touched on this issue, but not in this context. A halfling with a bonus in Constitution and Charisma? Hmmm….

1. Bryant, March 16, 2009:

   Mechanically that should be fine. You do lose flavor; a dragonborn fighter becomes even better than it was before, and I’m not sure dwarven fighters measure up any longer. I’d expect tieflings to rule the striker world, since +1 to hit around half the time is really, really good.

   I think that’s the thing — while all stats are equally important, with Con retaining an edge over the others, all stats are not equally important for each class. So there is a mechanical impact at the class level, and perhaps it’s balanced somewhat against the racial abilities?

2. Judd, March 16, 2009:

   I was talking with Thor and he said something really wise about 4e. You don’t optimize a single character in 4e, you optimize a party.

   Those threads should shift from what races and classes mix well to what two character concepts mix well, which feats compliment each other in neat ways. 4e, more than any other edition of D&D, takes the term -never split up the party- and burned it into the front covers of the books.

   Those are the threads, I’d like to see, threads about optimizing parties.

3. fissionessence, March 16, 2009:

   The eladrin race is balanced in a certain way having both its ability bonuses placed in the same defense. Allowing them to move one of these bonuses makes it more powerful than it should be, though possibly not too much in a campaign-by-campaign basis. You could also allow a player to gimp himself by placing both his bonuses into the same defense for flavor reasons.

   While I do think it’s not a terrible idea to allow a player to change their bonus or primary attack power class score for specific character concepts, I would prefer to let the races speak for themselves in what class they’re ‘good at’, and allow weirder character concepts to take the mechanical penalties associated. Some races just aren’t as good at being certain classes, and that’s fine with me.

   The deva wizard issue (and similar situations predating PH2 previews) has made me consider something else as well. When conceptualizing races, I sometimes see multiple ability scores being a good fit, and choosing which two can many times be a judgment call. One thing that I think should help guide people designing such races is to consider what classes exist that you think the race should be ‘good at’. When in doubt, put the race’s ability bonuses into the scores that complement that class. On the same note, think about what classes the race /shouldn’t/ be good at, and avoid placing the bonuses into that class’s relevant ability score.

   ~ Andrew

4. rob, March 17, 2009:

   The eladrin point raises an interesting thought – is it intrinsically better to alter the races than alter the classes? Put another way, why does an Eladrin fighter not just swap out Strength for Dex for a fighter, so he uses Dex for his class abilities?

   The first argument in that case is, of course, that if that’s what he wants to do he should just play a rogue, but I’m not sure how much weight that really carries. Is that really any more valid than saying “he should play a race with some strength”?

   On a purely practical level there’s a bit more to this. Classes with 2 stats are problematic, and the color is not always easy to align: I can easily imagine a DEX based fighter but it’s a lot harder to conceive of a STR based wizard (though perhaps not impossible).

   I’m finding this a really interesting thought experiment because it really pushes the boundaries between the color and the mechanics that underlie stats. 4E has made them much more abstract, and I wonder how abstract they really can be without things breaking entirely.

   -Rob D.

   PS – Hell, on some level there’s a part of me that just wants to decouple stats from powers entirely, just give everyone a +4 and call it a day, then let their stat distribution be the driver behind skills and such. But that is possibly all the way into crazytalk land.

5. Jonathan Walton, March 17, 2009:

   Rob, just wait for (a hypothetical) Hard Boiled Training, I guess? Seems like it’s pretty easy to take the HBC principles and apply them to classes, making variants that use different stats and what not. I don’t think that’s broken or undesirable at all, since that kind of thing is implemented on a limited basis. It’s not as if all Wizards can potentially be STR-based. Just this one Wizard or this specific faction of Wizards, which strikes me as A-OK. It doesn’t change the fact that most Wizards are scrawny and, therefore, doesn’t change the feel of D&D overall.

6. Ken Marable, March 18, 2009:

   I never could get worked up over the stat/class mismatch issue (that EN World thread lost my interest real fast), but I’m not apt to choose race based on stat bonuses anyway. When you factor in implements, stat increases, and even some feats over the life of the character, that +1 bonus isn’t real major. Now that 4e moved past having stat penalties, personally, I see stat bonuses as icing on the cake, and not a major factor in choosing a race/class combo.

   Other than needing to tweak humans, I don’t see any issue with allowing players to choose their stat bonuses. I’d probably just require an explanation as to why those particular stats are higher. Maybe a nice middle ground might be to allow only 1 stat to be swapped rather than both, but mechanically, I don’t see any issue with it.

7. Eric Finley, March 19, 2009:

   I dunno… I think I’d come at it from a different direction. Personally I’d turn down the race stat bonuses to +1 instead of +2, or maybe name three stats and let the player decide which two get +1 and which one gets +2, something like that – broaden the mix without losing the overall bias toward one class or another.

   But then I’d set up some counterbalancing stuff to help out the classic “struggling wizard” and “atypical class/race mix” characters. Feats, possibly, or else alternate class builds. “Stubborn dilligence. Wizard; Int 15 or less. If your first action in a turn is an Int-based wizard attack power and it fails to hit any target, you may use a minor action to reroll the power’s attack(s).” “Clutz luck. Rogue; Dex 11 or less. When rolling a rogue Dex-based attack power, roll 1d10+10 along with your 1d20. The 1d20 governs *only* whether you score a natural 1 or a natural 20. The result of the 1d10+10 is your attack roll on the die.”

   That could be a really fun mini-supplement to design. “Pigs Fly: the book of misfits.” Do one class-feature alternate for each class. The warlock with second thoughts about this whole pact thing; the paladin for whom choosing paladin was, itself, fundamentally a low-Wis judgment error due to a low-Cha self-confidence issue. Powerful enough to actually make them playable, given that they’re suffering from fundamental build issues otherwise. (Obviously you’d have to build in safeguards against stat-compensating stuff like the Martial Training feat, and suggest at most either one per party, or all misfits for a comedy game, but it could still be a fun set of sub-classes.)

8. Dave Turner, March 22, 2009:

   I’ve spoken with Jared S. about this and we prefer allowing players to simply re-skin the mechanical racial packages.

   For example, I could choose to play a “dragonborn” dwarf. What would that mean? It means that my dwarf has +2 STR/+2 CHA and a “breath weapon”, among other things. I re-skin the breath weapon as an alchemical preparation that he always carries with him. Uses the same stats as the dragonborn breath weapon racial feature.

   It’s also important to note that a PC built this way only has access to his “racial” feats. So my dwarf can’t take Dwarven Weapon Proficiency (or whatever it’s called), but can take Empowered Breath Weapon. I include this restriction only to keep the DM’s balancing headaches to a minimum.

9. rob, March 23, 2009:

   That reminds me that I was also pondering an “Everyone’s Human” model (to be a little more Sword & Sorcery-like) but with the various racial templates equating to nationalities, clans or what-have-you.

   -Rob D.